yesterday and today the Same One

11-09-2014 - Posted by Andre Piet

Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, is the Same One for the eons also. -Heb.13:8-

Amid much confusion (13:9) and the impending destruction of Jerusalem (13:13), the Hebrews are directed to a constant, a truth that is not subject to change. The word for “is” in Hebrews 13:8, incidentally, is missing in Greek, as is usually the case with the conjugations of the verb “to be”. It is in our language that the word “is” is required in this case, but linguistically, the word “is” can be just as correctly be placed between Jesus and Christ, so that the text would read:

Jesus is Christ, yesterday and today, the Same One for the eons also.

When the sentence is read in this manner, then the unchangeable truth is emphasized that Jesus Christ is. Was the great theme of preaching among (especially) Israel not, that Jesus the promised Christ (=anointed) is, the One foretold in the Tanakh (the OT)? Peter taught, in Acts 10:37,38, that Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism in the Jordan River. As Kings and priests were anointed with (olive)oil, so Jesus was anointed with Holy Spirit from heaven, when He stood up out of the water of the Jordan River. Olive oil is only a representation of the holy Spirit and of incorruptible life. What took place in the Jordan was, in turn, again a type of His later resurrection from the grave. Then, He definitively received the Spirit, and, once for all time, ‘stood up’. So, God made Him “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). Since then, He is King-Priest “after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb.7:16), the great subject of the Hebrew letter. That is unchanged, yesterday and today, and it will also remain true, throughout the eons during which He shall reign (Rev.11:15; 1Cor.15:25).